Artist and naturalist, Emily Christenson grew up with a mother who was an abstract artist and a State Park as her backyard. She spent her childhood exploring the forests outdoors and a variety of art materials in her mother’s studio. She graduated in 2002 with a double major in drawing and painting from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in Minneapolis, MN. She has exhibited her paintings, drawings, and photographs nationally and internationally in numerous galleries, art centers and museums in Washington, DC, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Ireland. She has received two merit award grants and her work is in many public and private collections including Delucchi +, Washington, DC, Bellcomb Technologies, Minneapolis, MN, and the Dubuque Museum of Art. She was co-owner and gallery director of renee grae gallery, as well as an ongoing instructor of both adults and children at the Figge Art Museum. She is married and a mom of two boys, currently living in IL where she maintains her painting studio incorporating her healing shamanic practice into her artwork.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I love being intimately involved in nature’s processes, acting on intuition and allowing uncertainties to exist. The challenge is trying to control my work in an environment that is uncontrollable. I am interested in the many species of lichen, algae and moss, other plant cell structures, waterways, glaciated landscapes and other natural fractal patterns.

My work is a practice of changing focus. It is about encounters where nature and my materials present themselves to each other and the interaction becomes documented. For the past fifteen years, my ongoing “Untitled dialogue” works are collaborations with nature made using non-toxic, water-miscible pigments and painting in the rain, snow or at the water’s edge. The work becomes the product of the reality of the moment. The more I listen to nature the more I learn about myself.

– Emily Christenson

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BIO

Artist and naturalist, Emily Christenson grew up with a mother who was an abstract artist and a State Park as her backyard. She spent her childhood exploring the forests outdoors and a variety of art materials in her mother’s studio. She graduated in 2002 with a double major in drawing and painting from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in Minneapolis, MN. She has exhibited her paintings, drawings, and photographs nationally and internationally in numerous galleries, art centers and museums in Washington, DC, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Ireland. She has received two merit award grants and her work is in many public and private collections including Delucchi +, Washington, DC, Bellcomb Technologies, Minneapolis, MN, and the Dubuque Museum of Art. She was co-owner and gallery director of renee grae gallery, as well as an ongoing instructor of both adults and children at the Figge Art Museum. She is married and a mom of two boys, currently living in IL where she maintains her painting studio incorporating her healing shamanic practice into her artwork.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I love being intimately involved in nature’s processes, acting on intuition and allowing uncertainties to exist. The challenge is trying to control my work in an environment that is uncontrollable. I am interested in the many species of lichen, algae and moss, other plant cell structures, waterways, glaciated landscapes and other natural fractal patterns.

My work is a practice of changing focus. It is about encounters where nature and my materials present themselves to each other and the interaction becomes documented. For the past fifteen years, my ongoing “Untitled dialogue” works are collaborations with nature made using non-toxic, water-miscible pigments and painting in the rain, snow or at the water’s edge. The work becomes the product of the reality of the moment. The more I listen to nature the more I learn about myself.